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2022-09-26 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Visiting Israel, Pakistani delegation promotes vision of peace ‘one step at a time’
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[IsraelTimes] Despite lack of diplomatic relations, a group featuring a former government minister tours Jerusalem, seeking to lobby Islamabad to join Abraham Accords
| While the highly publicized peace agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco have grabbed global attention, subtle underground conversations continue with other powerful Islamic countries — Pakistain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and others. |
Hundreds of Paleostinians poured out of Jerusalem’s Old City on a recent weekday carrying two open caskets, painted in deep green and emblazoned with Koranic verses, to the Moslem cemetery just outside the Lion’s Gate. Fighting against the mourning tide, both literally and figuratively, a group of 12 Pak visitors slowly made their way into the ancient city, each step bringing them closer to fulfilling a lifelong dream.
The delegation of Pak community leaders touring the country as part of a regional peace initiative arrived in Israel last Sunday for a six-day visit designed to foster deeper ties between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations. The group, some of whom live in the US and some in Pakistain, also met with President Isaac Herzog, local business leaders and political experts.
Continued from Page 2
As he meandered through the Umariya elementary school, a historic campus built over a former Crusader castle in Jerusalem’s Old City, Dr. Nasim Ashraf reflected on the first days of his maiden voyage through the Holy Land.
"Coming here has cleared up a whole lot of misunderstandings, fixed notions and wrong perceptions," Ashraf, a former Pak government minister, said as he stood in the school’s Ottoman-era courtyard.
Pakistain is one of numerous Moslem countries with no official ties to the Jewish state — though there have been brief overtures in the past, most notably a meeting between Israeli and Pak foreign ministers in 2005, following then-prime minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to pull out of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
In recent years, military training exercises have been conducted alongside Pak forces. However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
Jerusalem’s increasingly close relationship with India remains a sore point for Pakistain, with the two neighboring states having fought periodic wars over contested territory in Kashmir
 ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir . The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
In a courtyard adjacent to a gymnasium once used as a rest stop for Jordan’s King Abdullah I during visits to Jerusalem, windows provided a rare glimpse from above of the northern courtyards of the Temple Mount, known to the Paks by its Arabic name, the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.
The competing historical narratives at play on the flashpoint esplanade and elsewhere would be a constant theme for the group to grapple with as it navigated through the city.
‘ONE STEP AT A TIME’
The trip was organized by Sharaka, an organization that emerged in the wake of the 2020 Abraham Accords — a series of normalization deals between Israel and several Arab nations — to promote peace and cooperation in the region, alongside the American Moslem and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council.
For Ashraf, joining the delegation was a logical step after decades spent promoting interfaith dialogue.
"Since the Abraham Accords, I’ve sensed there is definitely an appetite [in Pakistain] for peace with Israel. There is a lot of opposition too — one step at a time. We started the conversation in 2005 when I was a member of the government’s cabinet."
Following the signing of the accords, an adviser to then-prime minister Imran Khan
...aka The Great Khan , who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
reportedly visited Israel to convey Islamabad’s desire for a closer relationship between the two countries. Officials in Pakistain rejected the claims and the visit was never independently verified.
As the delegation ambled out of the tranquil school grounds and back into the chaotic alleyways of the Old City, Ashraf, as if thinking aloud, concluded: "Israel can mainstream the Paleostinian youth, to reduce hatred and violence, giving them the same education and opportunities. That’s how you change thinking and society at a young age — not when you have nothing."
The Pak delegation is following in the footsteps of a group of Bahraini and UAE nationals that visited the Jewish state with Sharaka nearly a year ago. That group, wearing traditional white Islamic robes common in the Gulf states, attracted far more media attention and public fanfare than their South Asian counterparts.
The lack of attention may have been by design. Whereas the autocratic governments of Bahrain and the UAE enthusiastically welcomed ties with Israel, anti-Israel sentiment runs deep in Pakistain’s messy political system.
Last year, Pak journalist Ahmed Quraishi was fired from his position after visiting Israel. Last week, few delegates clamored for the opportunity to speak on the record.
Ashraf, though, was open, perhaps due to his high profile and US citizenship. He said that the Quraishi incident was part of the reason for his visit.
"I said the only way I will go [to Israel] is if it’s public, not in the closet. Let’s make peace go forward. If this is to lead to anything in our lifetime, or the next lifetime, it has to be on record and some people just have to bite the bullet."
’WONDER OF THE WORLD’
Descending the steps toward the Western Wall plaza, the group stopped to watch darkness descend upon the city as the Dome of the Rock lit up, the golden jewel in Jerusalem’s crown.
Led by Dan Fefermen, global affairs director at Sharaka, along with a quintessentially Israeli tour guide in loose jeans and a patterned shirt, the delegation entered the Western Wall Tunnels complex, marveling at the engineering genius and religious significance of King Herod’s Temple walls.
The dark, damp rooms they entered, which lay undisturbed until their rediscovery a decade ago, became the scene of a bizarre interfaith dialogue: the Moslem Pak visitors compared notes from the Koran with the Israeli tour guide’s biblical knowledge, confirming the existence of shared narratives and pointing out subtle differences.
The tunnels themselves have been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict. In 1996, excavations under the Moslem quarter of the Old City, authorized by then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sparked three days of rioting across the West Bank and Gaza that would take the lives of 25 IDF soldiers and over 100 Paleostinians.
| It’s a bizarre idea that if they riot enough reality will somehow stop being real. |
While the highly publicized peace agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco have grabbed global attention, subtle underground conversations continue with other powerful Islamic countries — Pakistain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
and others.
As the tunnel conversation petered out and the group headed for the Western Wall plaza’s exit, one delegate, as if making a public proclamation, said, "The wonder of the world," as he watched the masses of swaying Jewish worshipers at the foot of the wall, the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock’s golden dome above. All nodded their heads in agreement. 
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